Day: June 13, 2021

According to Mike Johnson of PWInsider, some insiders in WWE believe Aleister Black was released prematurely. Black did excel during his NXT tenure and even won the NXT championship. The timing of this release from the company did seem a little peculiar. Why would you bring him back on TV May 21 if you were going to release him a week later? It doesn’t make much sense (unless we get context). The Dutch superstar was not used on TV for about six months prior and releasing him would have made all the sense in the world but not after bringing him back on TV for one episode and foreshadowing a program with Big E.

Now the situation is affecting E, and Mr. McMahon cannot come up with anything for him to do right now. In the meantime, Aleister has the option to go to AEW or elsewhere. The combination of layers, debts, and history/subtext he adds to his character would fit correctly with the long-term storytelling AEW likes to do (Kenny Omega, the AEW world champion, is a master of this).

WWE has set the lofty goal of booking the 2021 edition of SummerSlam to be as big as WrestleMania. It may even be a little bigger. The event is advertised to be held on August 21 at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas. The Las Vegas Raiders had a successful move to this Stadium which manifested during the 2020 NFL season. WWE is planning to book John Cena vs. Roman Reigns in the main event for the Universal championship. Reigns faced Cena at Night of Champions in 2017 in which he was put over and the torch was proverbially passed between the two stars – one generation off to Hollywood and another being crowned at the top of WWE.

This match was originally set to take place at SummerSlam 2017 on a much bigger stage. Now four years later Cena will get the opportunity to main event the second biggest (this year the company intends to make it the biggest) Pay-Per-View of the year with WWE’s current top star in Reigns. Cena’s filming schedule in 2017 would not allow him to wrestle at SummerSlam.

2021 is a great year for John considering he is now a more established Hollywood actor and has a little more freedom in his schedule. 2021 is a massive year of exposure for the former Franchise of WWE – Wipeout is currently airing on TBS, F9 is scheduled to come out in just a couple of weeks (in which he replaces The Rock’s character), the new Suicide Squad movie after that, and now a main event but at SummerSlam.

This will be the first time Cena has interacted with Roman since The Tribal Chief turned heel upon returning to the company at SummerSlam 2020 after a five-month hiatus to take care of his family. The only one I can remember possibly being bigger than this was the ’92 SummerSlam which featured a familial showdown between two brothers in law when Bret Hart took on The British Bulldog (Davey Boy Smith).